China’s President Xi Jinping has a new vision for Asia, with his country at the center of affairs. It embodies what he calls the “Asia-Pacific dream” and two new “Silk Roads” and is backed by tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure investment, a proposed free-trade zone and vigorous diplomatic engagement. It is already shaping […]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the United States on Friday of having double standards on Syria, saying it had blocked a U.N. Security Council statement condemning a car bomb attack in Damascus.

It’s amazing that no one is talking about this. “China’s demand is robust” they’ll say. “China may overtake India as the top gold consumer” they’ll add. “Exports rise year over year” the chatter continues. But no one, and I mean no one, in the mainstream is calling a spade a spade. China is hoarding gold […]

China surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest trading nation last year as measured by the sum of exports and imports of goods, official figures from both countries show. U.S. exports and imports of goods last year totaled $3.82 trillion, the U.S. Commerce Department said last

A truck carrying fireworks ahead of Chinese New Year celebrations exploded Friday on a bridge in central China, killing at least 26 people as it sent vehicles plummeting dozens of meters (yards) to the ground, state media said.

Ever since European seaports closed their gates to Iranian oil tankers last summer, Iran has looked to the East to keep its economy afloat. Countries such as China, India and South Korea — some of them critics of Western sanctions — have offered Iran a lifeline of reliable markets and much-needed dollars.

Apple expects China to overtake the United States as its biggest market, CEO Tim Cook told a Chinese government news agency. “China is currently our second largest market. I believe it will become our first. I believe strongly that it will,” the Xinhua News Agency quoted Cook as saying in an interview. The report gave […]

YINCHUAN, China — The praying and slaughtering begin every morning at sunrise. “Allahu Akbar” intones the imam over each cow before it is strung up by its hooves and quartered. This scene and other religious and ethnic practices set China’s Muslim minorities apart from the rest of the population,

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists travelling with him on a flight to Moscow from a EU-Russia summit in Brussels on Saturday he believed Western powers had no desire to intervene in the Syrian conflict.

Russia backtracked Friday on comments about Syria made by a key official only a day earlier. On Thursday, Russia’s state-run RIA news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov as saying that an opposition victory over the Assad regime could not be “ruled out.” Friday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said that Russia’s Syria […]